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Student Experiences: The Accessible Mental Health Initiative

June 25, 2018
By: Emily Cehic

Creating AMHI resource for teachers was my passion project

"As teacher candidates, we often learn about different mental illnesses"

Hey! My name is Emily Cehic and I just finished my third year here at Queen’s. Over the past year, I had the amazing opportunity to create a social justice action as a part of one of my classes. As teacher candidates, we often learn about different mental illnesses and how to create an I.E.P., but I found that it was hard to find resources relevant to teachers.

As such, I created the website The Accessible Mental Health Initiative (www.amhi-online.com) to help open the conversation and make mental health an ongoing discussion within schools. As someone who is both a teacher candidate and has a mental illness, this project quickly turned from coursework to a passion project. Everyone has mental health, by talking about it in classrooms and creating positive environments teachers have the opportunity to make a positive change.

What is AMHI Online?

"I hope that more people are able to visit the website and find it useful."

At the moment, the website contains various toolkits for both teachers, parents and students to help learn about mental health and self-care as well as resources all over the internet (with helpful summaries as well). The website also contains a compiled list of books, podcasts, videos and websites about mental health. I also got to work with other students advocating for mental health to create a series of blog posts. Whether through the website itself or the mental health quotes that I illustrate on Instagram, I hope that more people are able to visit the website and find it useful.

Supportive Community at Queen's

"If you have a social justice action in mind, I highly recommend starting during your time at Queen’s."

I cannot wait to see where AMHI goes in the future and how it will evolve and grow. Without classes like SOCY 273, I would never have had the opportunity to create such a website and discover such an amazing community of like-minded students here at Queen’s. If you have a social justice action in mind, I highly recommend starting during your time at Queen’s because you won’t find a more supportive community out there.

With special thanks to everyone who has helped me along the way, especially Alana Butler for getting the website out there!